Moo paints the town - and the garage wall - red!

My dear friend Moo throws the BEST parties, and her Australia Day Weekend party is an annual event we never miss. This year's get together was a triumph - just look at these happy faces.

We dined al fresco in her garden, beneath the cool shade of huge camphor laurels, with Moo's newly limewashed red garage wall providing a very House & Garden backdrop.

An essential part of a Moo party is The March, where improvisation is the order of the day when it comes to musical instruments, and guests stride out around the garden, through the house (and sometimes even along the street) to the strains of Colonel Bogey. Moo leads the way with her postman's whistle!

Happy Australia Day!

A lamington, the Aussie flag, and a harbourside vantage point at Point Piper - perfect!

The sun shone all day, and we watched the Great Ferry Race, the Tall Ships, and the Air Force jet displays while we enjoyed great food and laughter with good friends.

We are feeling very blessed after such a day!

Sunny's Birthday

Sunny and Ben are expecting a baby - our very first grandbaby - in April, and last night we celebrated her birthday with a family barbecue. Dodging the showers of rain, and the marauding mosquitoes who decided Sunny was just too sweet for words (something we already knew) we enjoyed our meal in my favourite summer setting - the garden.

I made her a wallhanging, varying a kimono fabric origami quilt kit I had bought. Instead of the kimonos I made tiny (4 inch high) versions of the Korean han bok instead. Each is attached to the quilt with a small patch of Vliesofix so that it stands out from the background.

Personalising my blog header

When it comes to using up the precious hours in my day, playing around on the computer comes a close second to fondling fabric and designing quilts I'll never make. So when I read that it was possible to "pretty up" my blog header I just had to try.

It's only taken me two days - but I've done it! A genuine geek would tweak it even more, I'm sure, but it will do nicely for me, thank you very much. I had tried unsuccessfully for around 1.9 days until I stumbled on instructions that this dummy could understand - and did it in no time.

Here's the link if you want to try. I made my photo, with its text floating over it, in Microsoft Digital Image, before I started.

http://betabloggerfordummies.blogspot.com/2006/11/how-to-customize-your-header.html

Back to the Blog

I'm back! You might remember me from the epic blog Di's Diary (2005), a vast travelogue stretching from Cairo to Oxford, following the adventures and misadventures of two middle-aged Aussies on 3 months' long service leave. Click on the link at the bottom of the sidebar if you missed it.

You'll thrill to tales of high speed touring in Tuscany, you'll laugh at the camel riding caper at Petra, you'll be enchanted by photos of the foggy wonderland that is Oxford in November, and you'll be enlightened (though perhaps put off your dinner) by my description of life as a patient in the intensive care unit of a Cairo hospital.

After a blogless year I've decided to get back to it, so here goes.